Follow by Email

Sunday, 25 October 2015

Abraham, Refugees and the Madness of Ethical Action

A
family leave their country of origin,
they leave behind parts of their extended family, they leave the security and
insecurity of their homes – they make the journey from their familiar
surroundings to an unknown and distant land. The reach a temporary resting
place but there is no respite there, so they move on. But still there are no resources
available – in our Biblical text (Genesis
12:10) it’s called a famine – so this migrant family have to move on, keep on
going, facing the dangers that arise along the way, they have to keep on
journeying until they find some sanctuary, some asylum, somewhere to lay their
heads and start to build a new life for themselves.

It’s
an ancient story, it’s a universal story, and it’s an absolutely contemporary story.
The story of Abraham the refugee that we read this Shabbat (Genesis 12) is the
story we see on our TV screens, the story that dominated the headlines over the
summer months, the story that is still very much a present and growing reality
across Europe; it is the story of our times that hasn’t gone away, isn’t going
to go away – even if it has dropped down the news agenda in recent weeks.

Such
is our craving for new ‘news’, that both the press and the 24 hour cycle of
rolling TV and digital news have to keep manufacturing different stories to
feed our appetite for what’s new and different - ‘breaking news’ is sexier than
‘heart-breaking news’ that goes on day after day, week after week. The media
know that we suffer from what one might call ‘attention deficit disorder’ –
that’s not a medical condition, it’s a spiritual disorder, a dis-ease of the
soul. It means it’s almost impossible
now to stay focused on what matters, what’s really important, for any length of
time: for more than a few minutes sometimes - maybe a few hours - certainly no
longer than a few days. How many times a day, an hour, do we check our phones? Maybe
we’ve had an email, a tweet, a WhatsApp message, something new on Facebook or
Instagram. Something new. Think how we greet each other when we meet: ‘Hi,
what’s new’, we say.

This
craving for the new – and it can be material goods, or personal experiences, or
relationships, or in relation to the daily news - is a symptom of some kind
ofmalaise of the spirit. Of course we
may not think of it that way, we may not consciously experience it as an
affliction at all. But one consequence of our living in thrall to the next new
thing is that the ongoing crisis in Europe risks becoming yesterday’s news.

The
greatest humanitarian crisis that we have faced in Europe in 70 years is no
longer new news. Even over the summer it wasn’t new. Truth to tell, we know
it’s been going on for a number of years now, the exodus of multitudes of men,
women, children, from war zones and from famine and floods, from poverty and
deprivation, in Africa and Asia, and – since the Iraq war and then when the
Syrian civil war began – from the Middle East too. Dangerous, haphazard
journeys in boats that sink, and container lorries that suffocate you to death:
people risking their lives, and their children’s lives, not because they want
to live on benefits at someone else’s expense but because they are desperate,
desperate for the things we take for granted – food, medicine, shelter, freedom
from the fear of random bombs, bullets, machetes, freedom from the fear ofrape or torture or state kidnapping and
disappearance. None of this has gone away. But none of this is new.

What
is new, perhaps, is the walking. Tens of thousands of families, just like us,
are walking, right now, through rain and mud and freezing conditions, from one
European country to the next, searching for which border is open, and for how
long, trying to find somewhere to rest their heads, some hospitality, some
sanctuary, some hope for the future. And I don’t think people in the UK are
suffering from so-called ‘compassion fatigue’ – because many citizens in this
country (not all, I know) have reservoirs of compassion for these migrants,
these refugees, for these vulnerable strangers who are fleeing war and
deprivation and persecution in their countries of birth. We have as a nation
the compassion; but we seem to lack, individually and collectively, the
capacity to sustain our attention and keep focused on this crisis and what we
can do about it.

And
there are things we can do. We are not helpless. Even though the scale of this
crisis is enormous, there are practical things that can be done. We might despair
of the niggardly, pusillanimous minimalism of our government’s response –
20,000 refugees over 5 years is quite frankly shameful for a country like ours
with historically (by and large) such a strong tradition of welcome for those
fleeing persecution; we can compare the UK’s official response not just of
course with Germany’s extraordinary generosity of spirit but with Sweden’s
response, who have taken in 85,000 refugees this year – that’s into a country
with a population smaller than London . But whether or not one feels outrage
about the UK government’s response, if you experience your own human concern
and compassion, there are actions on a local level that you can commit yourself
to. That can makea difference.

This
week, for example, in the area where I live, Barnet Council have agreed
officially to support the re-settlement of 50 Syrian refugees. That’s a
pathetically small number – but it is something: 50 vulnerable human souls.
This was after a campaign prompted by one of our local Progressive rabbis
together with Barnet Citizens (part ofthe charity Citizens UK), who together organized local GP surgeries and
landlords and schools to commit themselves to working with and supporting 50
newcomers from those Syrian refugee camps. They did this together with other
faith leaders, Christian and Muslim, and members of all three of the faith
communities that acknowledge Abraham as a spiritual forebear.

Religious
leaders do have a role to play in this crisis. Back in September more than 80
bishops from the Church of England wrote privately to Mr. Cameron urging him to
accept at least 50,000 refugees from Syria, and offering a range of services
and support, including fostering children and finding accommodation – but in
spite of stressing the urgent and compelling moral duty to act, they have
basically been snubbed by the Prime Minister. But it was absolutely right that
they wrote; and that they have made public their disappointment at the government’s
refusal of their offer of practical assistance to help settle these refugees,
assistance that would not have put a drain on the country’s resources. (Ironically,
it would have been a fine example of the ‘Big Society’ that Cameron has said
he’s so keen to promote. It’s hard not to be cynical when one sees such a
blatant gap between political rhetoric and action, or the failure to act).

Both
the current Chief Rabbi and the last Chief Rabbi have also set out the moral
case for action and both have encouraged the Jewish community to use World
Jewish Relief (www.wjr.org.uk ) as a conduit for targeted financial relief on
the ground, where the efforts are going into providing medical help, clothing
and shelter for vulnerable women and children in Turkey and Greece in
particular.

Money can make
a difference of course. But so can campaigning and volunteering – look at www.citizensuk.org/north_london to see local
initiatives in London. There are large
reserves of good will and empathy around the country as well as an awareness
that the response of politicians and the public will be judged by history.
Winter is approaching and we can be bystanders to this unfolding humanitarian
tragedy – or we can act.

If you feel
you want to do something of real practical value then contact one of the
members of Finchley Reform Synagogue, Holly Kal-Weiss (kalweiss@yahoo.com), who two weeks ago went to Calais where there
are several thousand men and women and children from war-torn countries –
including unaccompanied children and pregnant women – crowded together in an
unsafe camp on a small patch of wasteland. You may have seen the pictures on
the news. But you won’t have seen the 1 toilet for every 70 people and the
people boiling drinking water due to E.Coli. There are no major charities on
the ground – just a grassroots movement of volunteers and some small local
French charities.

If
you are someone who is more concerned that your Eurostar trip will be delayed
by these unruly strangers, then you probably won’t be interested in this, but
Holly is part of that grassroots network of volunteers (see www.calaidipedia.co.uk
) and she is
going back there next weekend. She is
looking for people to join her to help sort clothes in warehouses, to
distribute supplies, to help build weather-proof structures – it is already
cold and winter is on the way – she also needs doctors, nurses, first-aiders,
people good at DIY, and anyone who feels they can offer the moral support just
of being there in solidarity so that these desperate people do not feel
completely abandoned. If you can spare a day, or two, next weekend she wants to
get together four carloads of volunteers.

She
told me that people think she’s mad for being so passionate about this. Well
these may be maddening times, it might feel dementing to see the UK’s
feet-dragging response to this crisis, but we don’t as individuals have to
collude with this. It’s far from mad to feel ‘I want to do something, I can
make a difference, to one person, one family, one small group of fellow human
beings in desperate circumstances.’ If
this is madness then all of Jewish ethical teaching is a form of madness.

It
would mean that all the talk in the Torah about love of the stranger, care for
the outsider, compassion for the impoverished, the deprived, the marginalised,
all that repeated emphasis on the Jewish responsibility to make a difference to
the lives of others, all that prophetic pathos and rage on behalf of the
disadvantaged and the poor and the vulnerable, that insistence on justice and
righteousness, it would mean it’s all just an ongoing madness. Is that what we
believe? Is that what we really think in our hearts? That ethical action is a
form of madness?

Or
do we think that enacting these qualities as best we can, however we can, is
what it means to be Jewish, is the purpose of being Jewish? Isn’t this what it
means in that sentence from the Torah we heard this week: that Abraham was told
that his destiny, his family’s destiny, his tribe’s destiny, his people’s
destiny was to be a blessing? (12:
2). This was to be their role in life, in history, through the generations. To
strive to be a blessing, to bring a blessing to others, to act towards others
so that, as the text goes on to say ‘through you all the families of the earth
will be blessed’ (12:3).

The
Jewish task of bringing blessing to others through our ethical actions is
rooted in this text, the story of Abraham who left Haran - that happens to be
in present-day Syria - and followed a voice, an inner sense of purpose, that
started with those words that came to him as if out of nowhere: ‘Lech L’cha – get going!’ Can we still
hear that voice today, the one that tells us ‘Lech L’cha, Get going...get on with it...’?

Actually
this great call to action that Abraham heard can also be read in a different
way: ‘Lech L’cha: Go...to yourself, go
into yourself...’ It’s a call to make a journey that isn’t just geographical
but spiritual and psychological: go into yourself! And when you do journey into
yourself, see if you can find the compassion and the courage and the empathy
for others which lives within you. And then see if you can act on it.

Jews
know, historically and culturally, in their hearts and souls and bodies, what
it is to be a refugee, what it is to migrate, how hard this can be. Jews have
been migrants and refugees from Biblical times onwards – Abraham, Isaac, Jacob,
Joseph, all were forced to move: the book of Genesis isa book about migration, about flight; then
the Exodus from Egypt created a generation of refugees, of wanderers, of people
walking through scorching heat and freezing nights towards a distant promised
land.

This
is our story, and it didn’t end with the settlement of that promised land,
because that only led to exile and diaspora and a scattering around the globe;
and in every century there were expulsions and migrations, new beginnings in
new lands. The Jewish story isa story
of wanderings: we know the soul of the newcomer because we have been newcomers
so often through themillennia; we know
what it is to encounter hostility and we know what it is to encounter
hospitality. We know the difference between scapegoating and sanctuary. And
because we know all this in our innermost being we can bring a blessing to
others who now face upheaval and dislocation and migration. This is our
responsibility, our purpose, our destiny.

Lech L’cha: Go into yourself, and
find the beating heart of your better selves. And call it the voice of God that
asks this of you, or the voice of conscience – it doesn’t matter. What matters
is finding a way to overcome cynicism and indifference and fear.What matters is finding the good that you can
do, the godly things to do, not in five years time but now, in the weeks and
months ahead.

[based on a sermon given at Finchley Reform Synagogue,
London, October 24th 2015]